A Brief Explanation of Psychology as Taught in an Introductory Class

Michael Ofsowitz

First, let me paraphrase an old quip and say that for most of you, Introduction to Psychological Science will teach you more about psychology than you ever wanted to know.

Second, let me dispel a myth: the field of study called psychology is not about diagnosing and treating people who have psychological disorders; it includes the investigation into causes and treatments of disorders, but that is a relatively small component of the whole.

Psychology is about everyday people; studying psychology is an attempt to understand the roles of behavior and mind in the overall human condition. And to understand these things accurately, we opt for scientific investigation, which means we follow the rules of science so that we won’t be tempted by our biases and weaknesses in making discoveries and getting them verified.

Now, since it is not primarily about diagnosing and treating people, what is it about? Well, it’s about the mind, behavior, and the brain. Some of the basic questions psychologists try to answer are things like: How does a person know what’s going on around them? Do we see reality or do we see what we prefer to see? How do we remember anything? Why do we act at all? Why do we coordinate our actions with other people? How do we learn new tricks? How do mental abilities change from those we have as babies to those we have as we get old? Does playing computer games change the way our minds work? Does language change the way the mind works? Why do we behave differently when other people are around? How do we know who to like and to love? What happens when things do go wrong mentally – how does a person qualify as having a mental or behavioral disorder? How are behavioral and mental problems dealt with? And what is going on inside the brain when any of these kinds of things are happening?

To answer questions like these scientifically, which is to say factually and correctly, we have to learn the language and methods of the field that specializes in this: psychology – that is, the way psychologists describe things, and the way they get at answers. The language of psychology – whether we’re studying the mind, behavior, or the brain – makes it possible to avoid problems commonly created by unclear manners of speech or writing. The language gives us precision concerning the components that might be involved in any of the topics we’re studying. And the methods of psychology – scientific methods – allow us to escape the constraints of uncritical beliefs and opinions and forces that get us to agree or disagree with these uncritical beliefs. Yes, scientific methods free us from popular beliefs and persuasive influences coming from people with agendas or needs. Put another way, science forces us to see the world as it is, not as we want it (or someone else wants it) to be. Using scientific methods, psychologists search for realities: answers that withstand the tests of skeptical scientific scrutiny. By learning both the language and the methods of psychology, we can carefully and more correctly ask meaningful questions about how human mental life and behavior functions, and we have the tools to seek the right answers.

Some problems with psychology: The biggest problem (hinted at above) is the popular stereotype that psychology is going to examine problem cases: the insane, the distressed, maladjusted, otherwise disordered, decidedly unusual, and so forth; and then there are perceptions of psychology’s topics that come from pop culture, beliefs like maximizing self-potential, detoxifying relationships, and maintaining mental health and chemical balance in the brain, and so on. In reality, however, most of what psychologists do is focused on normal, average people, and our unpopular attempts to explain how a normal (not-disordered) person’s mind works, and how they behave, and that in detail. We don’t talk about “what makes someone become a serial killer?” as much as we talk about things like “how is it possible to see in color?” Discussions of insanities, mental disorders, therapies, etc. is a part of psychology, but it’s not the central part.

And on top of that, most people think psychology class is going to be easy; after all it sounds fun, and even college advisors think it’s easy and fun. Well, it might be fun, but if it were easy we’d know more about psychology than we know about physics. (I’m not the first to say that.) In other words, explaining atomic energy or predicting the trajectory of a rocket as it passes Jupiter is relatively easy (though nobody says that about Physics 101); explaining happiness or aggressiveness or predicting a person’s behavior as they enter a situation is tough. And both physics and psychology use the same principles: those of science. They both use scientific principles because it works, it makes us find and eliminate all the bad ideas, the incorrect assumptions, the misguided notions. Students are often surprised about how scientific their introductory psychology courses are. But without science, we don’t have a system for getting rid of bad ideas.

Finally, almost everyone comes to their first psychology class with assumptions and beliefs about how people function, how they learn new things, where personality differences come from, what babies really want, etc. This pre-existing “knowledge” may have been useful, helping to structure interactions with others, even if it was incorrect. Of course, we often cling to these assumptions and beliefs because they’ve accompanied us through years of life, they’re anchored in our memories, and they may have been acquired from persons we respect (parents, friends, clergy, therapists, Dr. Phil…). And we just know they can’t be wrong. But science doesn’t take their word for it. When we’re careful, doing proper investigations, what we see often challenges our intuitive thoughts, even some that we strongly believe in. What this means for students is that they’ll be exposed to explanations of mind and behavior that may seem counterintuitive, and scientific evidence may contradict, and even shatter some of their pre-existing (incorrect) beliefs. This may seem simple in print, but it takes an open mind, willing to learn what psychologists have discovered about behavior and mental processes, otherwise class will be extra challenging.

The introductory course in psychology samples the existing base of knowledge and theories (explanations) in a wide variety of topic areas, such as those mentioned above. It can be overwhelming. As with most introductory courses, there’s some tension between breadth and depth, yet the course will appear to be both very broad and very detailed. To some it will seem like an endless list of details to be memorized (although some of those details will be wonderfully interesting). Much of this is due to the wealth of information that’s available, that defines the field of psychology. Ideally we’d want students to internalize the language of psychology and some of the facts that have been discovered, to comprehend concepts and begin to appreciate the complexities of the interconnections between them, and to start thinking like scientific psychologists or seeing the world the way scientific psychologists see it. Given the limits on assessment used in PSY 101 @ MCC (the multiple guess tests), the focus is a bit heavy on memorization of language and facts, and basic comprehension of concepts. Hopefully enough of it will still be somewhat fascinating.

Assuming you’re more curious about psychology in college, also see the pages in my Psychology link (same as the link in the navigation menu).